Chlorine leak in New South Wales factory sends 43 workers to hospitals

A chemical leak in a Newcastle factory on Monday morning caused the hospitalisation of more than 40 employees and evacuation of another 200 workers. Fire and Rescue New South Wales traced the source to a chlorine leak at the Baiada Poultry factory in Beresfield, Newcastle.

The leak was reported at around 8:30 am as a number of workers reacted to it and had to be rushed to three different hospitals in the region. The chlorine is used to clean the factory’s processing equipment. Brett Drotty, duty commander of Baiada, says once they realised that it was chlorine, workers isolated the leak, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

The company placed fresh water through the pipe work and cleared the system out. Then, some employees came in with monitoring equipment and checked for all the levels which were found safe, says Drotty.

The 43 employees who complained of breathing problems, sore eyes and nausea were rushed to the Calvary Mater. Maitland and John Hunter hospitals. They are all now in stable conditions. Unaffected employees had returned to work.

Baiada adds that it is investigating the incident and would provide the public with more information. Besides the company, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union and the Environment Protection Authority are also conducting separate probes of the incident, reports Newcastle Herald.

The authority is looking into complaints of neighbours of the factory that they did not hear an alarm from Baiada and were not informed by anyone from the factory of the chlorine leak.